With devotees queuing up to have a glimpse of the statue, the area wore a festive look with small-time traders trying to make a fast buck by selling prasadam and Baba’s idols!

The devotee couple Babu (45) and his wife Lakshmi took the marble idol to clean on Wednesday evening to prepare for the Thursday puja.

The idol had some black mark on its left chin and the couple’s son Dhrupad, who was cleaning the eye, suddenly felt some change in the idol – the eyelash seemed moving. The devotees were astounded and stopped the cleaning work.

On Thursday morning, they found the left eye of Baba had opened. Thursday being a day to worship Baba, the couple, along with their neighbours, performed puja.

The news flashed on Friday morning and by afternoon, the crowds multiplied.

“We had gone to Shirdi a year ago from where we bought this marble idol. It is a miracle that Baba opened his eye on Guru Poornima Day to give us darshan. It has been very difficult to control the crowd as people are queuing up to see the miracle. So we had to inform the police and arrange for bandobast,” said Drupad, a II PU student.

There was also a huge flow of cash as the devotees put “dakshine” (cash offering to God) after the darshan. “I am a staunch Sai Baba devotee and never had witnessed such a miracle. The idol looked like as if Baba was looking at me…I cannot forget this day,” said Swamy Narayan, a resident of Hanumanthanagar, with tears in his eyes.

Policemen from two stations – Kempe Gowdanagar and Hanumanthanagar – were deployed near the house along with Hoysala patrolling teams from Bangalore South. “More than 1,500 people had gathered and the crowd was maddening. Our concern was maintaining peace”, he said.